Who do you trust?
Who do you trust?
An article on page A3 of the Nov. 9 issue of The Hays Daily News titled "Asian flavor found in downtown Stockton" reminds me that we ought not to trust the media to pick our friends or our enemies. In the caption by the pictures, it mentions that the owner has decorated the cafe with symbols of Taiwanese culture and that she serves popular Taiwanese dishes such as Thai curry. Her native country is Thailand, and she decorates the cafe with symbols from Taiwan? I think that is two different countries and two different peoples although they may all be Asian and, to some I suppose, they may all "look" alike.
Although this is a warm and fuzzy story and it does not seem to be a political matter (thus there was probably no intention for the storyteller to pick our friends or enemies), it seems to me that people ought to be wary of the media's attempts to tell us who's been naughty and who's been nice. I might be tempted to try her food.
A fellow initiated a conversation with me several months ago and he definitely wanted to rant about the distrust he had of the media. After listening for a bit I gave him an observation that, yeah, I am not so sure we ought to have them choosing our enemies and wondered if that Iranian guy-- or, for that matter, the Russian guy, Putin -- were the crazy tyrants/dictators they are made out to be in the newspapers. And, I mentioned that I don't speak Farsi and I wondered if he understood the language. Well, no. Then you have to trust someone who does to translate what he really said. Who did he say he trusted? The pretty face with the perfect hair that is reading the news on the TV (and does not likely understand Farsi either, thus he/she is trusting someone else yet!).
What is the name of this condition where people proclaim one thing and then reveal that they believe the opposite? Is it insanity? Instantly, I became the opposite, with a sex change operation on the spot as he declared me to be "Jane Fonda" for not falling in line and believing each and every selection of the media in their choice of members in the "mean, evil, wicked, bad and nasty" crowd. Through the years, this has included those "dirty" Japs, the Nazis, the Ruskis, the Koreans, Vietnamese to extreme Islam or Islamo-Fascists, or just plain Iranians, I guess. Did the grunts of the world on either side pick these fights? One supposedly lone nut Muslim, we are told, shot over 40 people with two handguns on a military base, so there is an immediate call to obliterate Iran. Let's don't wait to run this guy through the court system; he doesn't deserve it, and the media already decided the case: He is guilty, forget the other shooters mentioned by a couple of witnesses, we have no money or time to investigate.
H.L. Mencken said, "The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the people alarmed by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary." He was right, it seems, as most of us would be utterly incapable of pursuing the evil ones without government munitions. The media appears to be in bed with the government. And some people are still influenced by the "As seen on TV" on packaging and print advertising.
Brainwashing works.
Richard Henderson
2518 E. 21st